Back to the real issues Wednesday night at the networks with each leading
with a different story. NBC's Tom Brokaw started with the choice
President Clinton presented: "Social Security and Medicare for the
future or fewer taxes right now?" CBS went first with the murder
trial in Jasper, Texas and ABC led with efforts to prevent further leaking
from an oil tanker off the Oregon coast. Later in the show ABC dealt with
two pressing socials trends, aka liberal causes: protests over low-wage
foreign apparel-making jobs and claims of racism in using Indian names for
sports teams.

-- Tom Brokaw
opened the February 17 NBC Nightly News:
"Good evening. Bill Clinton has about a year
and a half left before a new President is elected and he has a lot of
ground to make up after last year. He's hoping you'll help by turning
your back on a big tax cut. Does that sound like the world has been turned
upside down? It is the new battleground after impeachment: Social Security
and Medicare for the future or fewer taxes right now? NBC's David Bloom
tonight on the President doing what he does best: campaigning."

-- With the
impeachment scandal over, ABC took advantage of the available news time to
highlight two liberal causes. Students may not have cared what Clinton did
in the Oval Office, but as Peter Jennings announced, they care about
something else:
"In several parts of the country today there
were demonstrations on college campuses, and it looks a little like a
movement that is beginning to pick of momentum. One college administrator
said that after so many years of apathy it was nice to know that college
students care about something other than basketball and bonfires."
Reporter Bill Blakemore began by recalling the
wonderful 1960s: "It feels like the '60s. Students occupying
administration buildings. Campus protests on a matter of principle. In
this case, no clothing made in sweatshops should be sold on campus or bear
college logos..."

ABC's very next
story looked at another liberal concern. Jennings explained: "There
is another issue that is causing some controversy at colleges and at high
schools. The Justice Department has launched its first investigation into
whether mascots with Indian themes violate the civil rights of native
Americans."

From Asheville,
North Carolina ABC's Bob Woodruff reported on how the federal boys from
up north are checking on any racial problems caused by a high school team
using "Squaws" as its name.

Hillary for President? Tuesday night after a story on speculation about
Hillary Clinton running for Senate in New York, CBS Evening News anchor
Dan Rather added this odd comment, as transcribed by MRC analyst Brian
Boyd:
"An editor's note, one of the arguments
reportedly being made to Hillary Clinton by those urging her to run, is
you win a Senate race in New York and you might be in position to run for
President later. Is she thinking about running for President or Vice
President in 2000, instead of for the Senate? No one in a position to know
will say."

Huh? In order to
run for President as a Senator she would have to become a Senator thereby
precluding a presidential run until 2004. Sounds like the dreams of CBS
News writers got ahead of sound reasoning.

Geraldo Rivera has moved on. He's moved on to impugning another woman
taking on Bill Clinton and anyone associated with her, MRC analyst
Geoffrey Dickens noticed in watching Rivera's CNBC Tuesday night shows.
The woman: Dolly Kyle Browning who is suing Clinton for supposedly
preventing her book on their affair from being published.

On the February 16
Upfront Tonight Rivera warned: "Ms. Browning is being represented by
Larry Klayman, a man whose organization Judicial Watch has been funded by
Richard Mellon Scaife, the same Clinton-hating billionaire who bankrolled
the project that dug up the dirt that lead the world to Paula Jones in the
first place. I mean pity the President, poor guy."

Later, on Rivera
Live, he complained:
"Here's how you get a President. You get a
President. First you locate any plaintiff, that's the symbol for
plaintiff, with any litigatable claim. I don't even know if that's a
word. But any claim, really almost any claim. Then you add to that, you
know claim, money from whatever disreputable source as long as it's
bankrolled. Then you demand discovery once you got the lawsuit underway.
Then once you got discovery you go fishing. You get into any, 'Who'd
you ever sleep with, who'd you ever curse at, who'd you ever pinch,
who'd you ever punch?' And then regardless of the way your lawsuit
goes then you can publish any salacious catch. Anything. You know whether
it's Monica. That's it. This is the menu, Dennis Shea, for getting a
President because the Supreme Court, all those, you know, those non-lawyer
lawyers have no real world experience and they had no idea that Larry
Klayman and Larry Klayman[s] of the world and we lawyers are everywhere
and there's many too many of us were out there."

Ted Turner is back in action advocating a one-child policy, attacking the
Pope, calling Tom DeLay "dumb," saying Ronald Reagan frightened
him and insisting the Ten Commandments are "a little out of
date" and specifically suggesting the one against adultery be
dropped. Turner identified himself as part of "the progressive
movement" and asserted: "People who think like us may be in the
minority, but we're the smart ones."

All this came in a
February 16 speech in Washington, DC to the 27th annual meeting of the
National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association. According to
the Drudge Report, cameras were not allowed to record the thoughts of the
man who founded CNN, a network normally demanding access to all speeches
and meetings.

But a Washington
Times reporter managed to learn what the Vice-Chairman of Time Warner
spouted. Here are excerpts from a February 17 Washington Times story by
Robert Stacy McCain:

...."We have to defeat those
congressmen and senators who are standing in the way of progress,"
Mr. Turner told the crowd at the Capital Hilton in Washington. "We've
got to win the next election."

Mr. Turner, founder of CNN and now the vice
chairman of Time-Warner Inc., also suggested that world population could
be reduced by the adoption of an international "one-child
policy."...

The Atlanta-based billionaire and his wife,
actress Jane Fonda, are active supporters of the United Nations Population
Fund. In 1997, Mr. Turner pledged $1 billion to a new foundation to
support U.N. efforts on population and the environment.

Though he fathered "five kids -- boom,
boom, boom -- by the time I was 30," Mr. Turner said, he now believes
overpopulation is a major problem and suggested people should
"promise to have no more than two children."

Mr. Turner recalled a discussion many years
ago with Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich, whose 1968 book
"The Population Bomb" predicted that hundreds of millions of
people would starve to death in the 1970s and '80s as a result of global
overpopulation.

Mr. Turner said he asked Mr. Ehrlich and
his wife, Anne, what the ideal world population would be. "They told
me about 2 billion," Mr. Turner said. World population is now 5.9
billion, but the world could reduce its population to that ideal, Mr.
Turner suggested. "We could do it in a very humane way," he
said, "if everybody adopted a one-child policy for 100
years."....

Mr. Turner said that when he was first
establishing his cable television empire, "the Cold War was the big
problem," but said Mr. Reagan's anti-communist rhetoric frightened
him. "Reagan was calling the Soviet Union an 'evil empire.' The
easiest way to get into a fight is to insult the other man," Mr.
Turner said.

Mr. Turner said the Ten Commandments are
"a little out of date," and suggested, "If you're only
going to have 10 rules, I don't know if [prohibiting] adultery should be
one of them."

Speaking of himself as a member of
"the progressive movement," Mr. Turner urged the NFPRHA audience
to "give 'em hell" when seeking more government funds for
population control. "People who think like us may be in the minority,
but we're the smart ones," he said, and as a result should be able to
defeat opponents he called "a whole bunch of dummies."

Mr. Turner, whose net worth is more than
$3.2 billion, got laughs with his responses during a question-and-answer
session after his speech. Asked about Mr. [Tom] DeLay, Mr. Turner said of
the Republican Congressman: "Nobody that dumb could make it through
law school."

Asked what he would say to Pope John Paul
II, who opposes abortion and artificial contraception, Mr. Turner
responded with an ethnic joke -- "Ever seen a Polish mine
detector?" -- and then suggested the Pope should "get with it.
Welcome to the 20th century."

Hollywood's perception of Ken Starr: a sex-obsessed, out of control
prosecutor who inspires his victims to recall Joe McCarthy in demanding
"Have you no shame?"

As noted in the
February 17 CyberAlert, the NBC dramas Law & Order and Homicide are
running crossover episodes this week involving the detectives and
prosecutors from New York City investigating a murder of a woman found
dead in New York who worked in Baltimore, but who had ties to the White
House, thus prompting a clash with the Independent Counsel.

Law & Order
aired Wednesday night and it soon became clear that the Independent
Counsel, "William Dell," is supposed to match Ken Starr. The
detectives in both cities learn that the murdered woman, "Janine
McBride," was a lesbian recently transferred from a position in the
Old Executive Office Building with the Council of Economic Advisers. They
find a witness who may have seen the murderer, but the witness was a lover
who is also a married mother with young kids so the prosecutors promise to
protect her identity.

While in a room at
the Watergate Hotel New York City prosecutor "Jack McCoy,"
played by Sam Watterston, as well as "Danvers," the Baltimore
prosecutor, are summoned to the office of Independent Counsel William Dell
who demands to know name of the witness, whereupon this exchange occurs:
Danvers: "Aren't you charged with
investigating financial misdealings by the administration? How does Janine
McBride figure into that?"
Dell: "The street only runs one way Mr.
Danvers. You tell me what you know. If you're not familiar with the
independent counsel statute..."
McCoy cuts him off: "I know the statute. I
also know about the leaks of grand jury testimony from your office. The
Justice Department is investigating your investigation."
Dell, growing angry: "Mr. McCoy!"
McCoy: "Speaking for myself I'm not
putting my witness in my murder case in jeopardy just to satisfy your
curiosity."
Danvers: "I have to follow Mr. McCoy's
lead on this."

Sounds like a
script written by David Kendall.

McCoy is forced to
appear before Dell's grand jury where Dell actually personally questions
his witnesses. When McCoy refuses to tell him the name of the witness,
saying he promised to keep him or her anonymous, Dell goes into irrelevant
personal matters from McCoy's past.
Dell demands: "Mr. McCoy, what are you
hiding?"
McCoy responds: "Nothing. I'm simply
trying to discharge my duties as a prosecutor for New York County."
Dell: "Your duties. Mr. McCoy, weren't you
called before the disciplinary committee of the New York Bar Association
for withholding a witness statement in a murder case?"

Dell's questions
grow more personal, saying in one question: "This ADA was one of your
lovers, isn't that right?" Dell then recklessly impugns New York
City police detective "Leonard Briscoe," played by Jerry Orbach,
saying he once was called before a police ethics commission, prompting an
outraged McCoy to point out he was cleared. Undeterred, evil Dell starts
talking about how Briscoe's daughter was murdered by a drug dealer. The
scene then builds to its climax:
Dell: "Wasn't he a passenger in a car
driven by another one of your lovers at the DA's office when she was
killed? Wasn't he drunk at the time? The accident report indicates that
he was. Now one last time Mr. McCoy, what is the name of your witness and
what did they tell the police?"
McCoy, shaking his head in disgust: "Mr.
Dell, have you no shame? Have you no shame?"

(Watch this scene:
About an hour after this e-mail is sent, the MRC's Sean Henry and
Kristina Sewell will post, on the MRC home page, a clip of this scene in
RealPlayer format. Go to: http://www.mrc.org)

Part two airs
Friday night at 10pm ET/PT on Homicide: Life on the Street. The promo run
at the end of Law & Order promises the Clinton team may be implicated,
though Dell, as Starr, is still "on a rampage."
Announcer: "Friday: Law & Order and
Homicide continue in an episode that hits the bulls-eye. A sex scandal
turned deadly."
Detective: "We've uncovered evidence that
Janine McBride's murder may have been ordered by someone at the White
House."
Announcer: "A prosecutor on a rampage who
doesn't care who gets hurt. The dramatic conclusion as Law & Order
joins Homicide. NBC Friday."

From the February 16 Late Show with David Letterman, a top ten list
inspired by Linda Tripp: "Top Ten Signs The President Is Trying To
Kill You." Copyright 1999 by Worldwide Pants, Inc.

10. He goes on TV to assure the nation that
he's not trying to kill you
9. You get a card from Saddam reading "Glad I'm not you"
8. You turn on CNN and see your house in green night-vision
7. You wake up next to the head of Donna Shalala
6. You overhear him arguing with lawyers over legal definition of the word
"strangle"
5. Keeps promising to "introduce you to Vince Foster"
4. He asks U.N. to pass resolution authorizing use of force against you
3. Now under construction in Arlington Cemetery: "The Tomb of The
Unknown Guy The President's Going To Kill"
2. "Someone" throws a Big Mac stuffed with a brick through your
window
1. Two words: exploding cigars

And from the Late
Show Web page, some of "the extra jokes that didn't quite make it
into the Top Ten."

-- You're the guy whose idea it was to make
the McRib available for a limited time only.
-- He give you the Secret Service code name "Roadkill."
-- Roger Clinton appears at your door saying, "You the one I'm
s'posed to kill?"

Time and space
prevent me from running the further analysis of CNN's Tuesday town
meeting promised in the last CyberAlert. But I will get to it in the next
one. -- Brent Baker

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